Batman 3 Status: Gary Oldman Jumped The Gun

A few days ago Gary Oldman, while on The Book of Eli panel at Comic-Con in San Diego, let a rather big piece of “news” slip: that the sequel to The Dark Knight, which is being referred to as Batman 3 (until titled otherwise) would be shooting next year.

However, later Mr. Oldman recanted his rather brash and out-of-left-field statement when he told Ain’t It Cool News, “Well, I’m sure they want to do another one… it might [be] 2 or 3 years…”

If what Oldman said was true, and assuming he didn’t mean the very end of the year, that would mean Batman 3 would start shooting just as Christopher Nolan was getting done with Inception, and right about the time that movie was getting it’s release next July. Nolan isn’t the type of director’s to rush (he’s only directed 7 movies to date if you include Inception), and a new installment in a huge franchise like Batman isn’t something to be hurried into.

What Oldman said was not only surprising but just didn’t make much sense because of the above reasons…

To further the “Nolan is busy” angle, David S. Goyer (who has a writing/story credit on both of Nolan’s Batman movies) said this to MTV:

“Right now, Chris is involved in filming ‘Inception,’ and when he finishes that, he will turn his studious gaze back to the Bat universe and we’ll see.”

Although Goyer doesn’t state it outright, we can take from his statement (or at least hope) that Nolan is going to at least consider returning to the Batman franchise for a third movie. Just because Nolan’s doing another movie totally unrelated to Batman with Inception (well, casting similarities aside) doesn’t mean he won’t come back to the “Bat universe” after it – after all, he did Batman Begins then switched to The Prestige and then back to Batman with The Dark Knight.

So there you have it, Batman 3 doesn’t look to be shooting next year as Oldman said. Ah, well, those who were shaking with excitement that the third movie in the franchise was finally getting going will have to wait a while longer for it to happen.

However, look at the bright side – the fact that it (most likely) won’t be shooting next year means that there’s more chance for Nolan to be on-board once again.

A long-gestating but quality Batman movie is better than a rushed crappy one, is it not folks?…

For now Batman 3 doesn’t have a release date. Inception is scheduled to hit theaters on July 9th, 2010.